The present invention relates to a cleaning device for cleaning toner particles remained after developing and transferring an electrostatic latent image retentive member by toner particles in an electrophotographic apparatus.
In a dry electrophotographic apparatus using toner particles there are proposed various methods of cleaning toner particles remained after transferring a toner image formed on an electrostatic latent image retentive member onto a recording medium. The method comprises a combination of a cleaning brush rotated adjacent to the recording medium and an absorbing device for sucking toner particles scraped by the brush. In this case a filter is used for collecting the toner particles scraped by the brush from the retentive member without dispersing outside and inside of the apparatus. It is, however, most important that maintenance of the filter should be easy, cleaning of the toner cleaning device and exchange of parts should be easy and mechanism should be simple. Conventional cleaning devices could not satisfy these requirements. Moreover, in case of obtaining a plurality of duplicated copies from one exposure by repeatedly toner-developing and transferring the same electrostatic latent image, it is necessary to make the cleaning device inactive during multiple copying.